PART ONE POLITICAL LIFE (continued 2)

And yet, after the worst has thus been said, we find ourselves still far removed from the facts. Each separate charge may be true, but the whole be false and misleading: even although many a party adherent admits the justness of the characterization, and declares that the party must decide every case “on its merits,” and that to hold to principles is inexpedient in politics. For the principles exist, nevertheless, and have existed, and they dominate mightily the great to and fro of party movements. Just as there have always been persons who pretend to deduce the entire history of Europe from petty court intrigues and jealousies of the ante-room or the boudoir, so there will always be wise-heads in America to see through party doings, and deduce everything from the speculative manipulations of a couple of banking houses or the private schemes of a sugar magnate or a silver king. Such explanations never go begging for a credulous public, since mankind has a deep-rooted craving to see lowness put on exhibition. No man is a hero, it is said, in the eyes of his valet. Nations, too, have their valets; and with them, too, the fact is not that there are no heroes, but that a valet can see only with the eyes of a valet.

It is true that the party lines of to-day have developed from the conflicting motives of the Civil War. But the fundamental error which prevents all insight into the deeper connections, lies in supposing that the anti-slavery party was first inspired by the individual fate of the negro, or in general the freedom of the individual. We must recall some of the facts of history. The question of slavery did not make its first appearance in the year 1860, when the Republican party became important. The contrast between the plantation owners of the South, to whom slave labour was apparently indispensable, and the industry and trade of the North, which had no need of slaves, had existed from the beginning of the century and was in itself no reason for the formation of political parties. It was mainly an economic question which, together with many other factors, led to a far-reaching opposition between the New England States and the South, an opposition which was strengthened, to be sure, by the moral scruples of the Puritanical North. But the earlier parties were not marked off by degrees of 45latitude, and furthermore the Southerner was by no means lacking in personal sympathy for the negro. The question first came into politics indirectly. It was in those years when the Union was pushing out into the West, taking in new territories and then making them into states by act of Congress, according to the provisions of the Constitution. In 1819 the question came up of admitting Missouri to the Union, and now for the first time Congress faced the problem as to whether slavery should be allowed in a new state. The South wished it and the North opposed it. Congress finally decided that Missouri should be a slave state, but that in the future slavery should be forbidden north of a certain geographical line. Thus slavery came to be recognized as a question within the jurisdiction of the federal Congress. Wherewith, if Congress should vote against slavery by a sufficient majority, it could forbid the practice in all the Southern states. And this would mean their ruin.

It came thus to be for the interest of the Southern states, which at that time had a majority, to see to it that for every free state admitted to the Union there should be at least one new slave state; this in order to hold their majority in Congress. Now it happened at that time that the territories which, by reason of their population, would have next to be admitted, lay all north of the appointed boundary and would, therefore, be free states. Therefore the slave-holders promulgated the theory that Congress had exceeded its jurisdiction and interfered with the rights of the individual states. The matter was brought before the Supreme Court, and in 1857 a verdict was given which upheld the new theory. Thus Congress, that is, the Union as a whole, could not forbid slavery in any place, but must leave the matter for each state to decide. Herewith an important political issue was created, and a part of the country stood out for the rights of the Union, a part for those of the individual states. The group of men who at that time foresaw that the whole Union was threatened, if so far-reaching rights were to be conceded to the states, was the Republican party. It rose up defiantly for the might and right of the federation, and would not permit one of the most important social and economic questions to be taken out of the hands of the central government and left to local choice. It was, of course, not a matter of chance that slavery became the occasion of dispute, but the real question 46at issue was the jurisdiction of the Federal Government. The federal party won, under the leadership of Abraham Lincoln. His election was the signal for the slave states to secede, South Carolina being the first. In February, 1861, these states formed a Confederation, and the Union was formally cleft. In his inaugural speech of the following March, Lincoln firmly declared that the Union must be preserved at all cost. The Civil War began in April, and after fearful fighting the secessionists were returned to the Union, all slaves were freed, and the Southern states were reconstructed after the ideas of the Republican party. The opposing party, the Democratic, was the party of decentralization. Its programme was the freedom of the individual state but not the servitude of the individual man.

When one understands in this way the difference between the two parties, one sees that the Republicans were not for freedom nor the Democrats for slavery, but the Republicans were for a more complete subordination of the states to the federation and the Democrats were for the converse. This is a very different point of view, and from it very much which seems incompatible with the attitude of the two parties toward the question of slavery may now be seen as a necessary historical consequence.

If we cast a glance at foregoing decades, we see that ever since the early days of the republic there has been hardly a time when these two forces, the centralizing and the decentralizing, have not been in play. It has lain deep in the nature of Teutonic peoples to pull apart from one another, while at the same time the struggle for existence has forced them to strong and well unified organization, so that scarcely a single Teutonic people has been spared that same opposition of social forces which is found in America. The origin of the Constitution itself can be understood only with reference to these antagonistic tendencies. The country wanted to be free of the miserable uncertainty, the internal discord and outward weakness which followed the Declaration of Independence; it wanted the strength of unity. And yet every single state guarded jealously its own rights, suspected every other state, and wished to be ensured against any encroachment of the federal power. And so the Constitution was drawn up with special precautions ensuring the equilibrium of power. At once, in Washington’s cabinet, both tendencies were distinctly 47and notably represented. There sat the distinguished Hamilton, the minister of finance and framer of the Constitution, who was a tireless champion of the federal spirit, and beside him sat Jefferson, the minister of state, who would have preferred to have the federation transact nothing but foreign affairs and who believed in general the less the legislation the better for the people. The adherents of Hamilton’s policy formed the federalist party, while Jefferson’s supporters were called the Democratic Republicans. The names have changed and the special issues have altered with the progress of events; indeed, apparently the centralist party has gone twice out of existence, yet it was actually this party of which Lincoln became the leader. Jefferson’s party, on the other hand, in spite of its change of name, has never as an organization ceased to exist. The Democrats who, in 1860, wished to submit the question of slavery to the individual states, were the immediate heirs of the anti-federalists who had elected their first president in 1800.

Now if the centralizing and decentralizing character of the two parties is borne in mind, their further development down to the present day can be understood. This development seems disconnected and contradictory only when the slavery question is thought to be the main feature and the Republicans are accounted the champions of freedom and the Democrats of slavery. Even Bryce, who has furnished by far the best account of the American party system, underestimates somewhat the inner continuity of the parties. Even he believes that the chief mission of the Republican party has been to do away with slavery and to reconstruct the Southern states, and that since this end was accomplished as far back as in the seventies, new parties ought naturally to have been formed by this time. Although the old organizations have in fact persisted, a certain vagueness and lack of vitality can be detected, he says, in both parties. According to that conception, however, it would be incomprehensible why those who formerly went forth to put an end to slavery now advance to bring the Filipinos into subjection, and to detain the poor man from purchasing his necessities where they are the cheapest.

As we have seen, the Democrats were the party which was true to the Jeffersonian principles, and in opposition to the supporters of congressional authority defended the rights and free play of the 48individual states. And the Republicans were those who wished to exalt beyond any other the authority of the Federal Government. This is the key to everything which has since come to pass. At the last presidential elections there were three great party issues—the tariff, the currency, and the question of expansion. In deciding on all three of these points, the parties have conformed to their old principles. Free-trade versus protective tariff was not a new bone of contention. Jefferson’s party had urged free-trade with all the nations of the earth at the very beginning of the century, and, of course, a decentralizing party which likes as little supervision and paternalism as possible, will always concede to the individual his right to buy what he requires where it will cost the least. The Democrats did not oppose a tariff for revenue, to help defray the public expenses, but they objected on principle to that further tariff which was laid on goods in order to keep the prices of them high and so to protect home industries. The centralists, that is, the whigs or the Republicans, on the contrary, by their supreme confidence in the one national government, had early been led to expect from it a certain protection of the national market and some regulation of the economic struggle for existence. And protective tariff was one of the main planks in their platform early in the century.

It is clear, once more, that the anti-centralists had a direct and natural interest in the small man, his economic weaknesses and burdens; every member of society must have equal right and opportunity to work out his career. It does not contradict this that the Democrats believed in slavery. In the Southern states the negro had come in the course of generations to be looked on as property, as a possession to be held and utilized in a special way, and any feeling of personal responsibility was of a patriarchal and not a political nature. The peculiarly democratic element in the position taken was the demand that the slavery question be left with the separate states to decide. As soon as fellow citizens were concerned, the anti-centralist party held true to its principles of looking out for the members on the periphery of society. In this way the party favoured the progressive income tax, and has always espoused any cause which would assist the working-man against the superior force of protected capital, or the farmer against the machinations of the stock market. 49The exaggerated notions as to the silver standard of currency originated outside of the Democratic party, and have intrinsically nothing to do with democracy. But as soon as a considerable part of the people from one cause or another began really to believe that nothing but a silver currency could relieve the condition of the artisans and farmers, it became logically necessary for the party which opposed centralization to adopt and foster this panacea, however senseless it might seem to the more thoughtful elements within the party. And it was no less necessary for the party which upholds federal authority to oppose unconditionally anything which would endanger the coinage and credit of the country. The gold standard is specifically a Republican doctrine only when it is understood to repudiate and oppose all risky experimenting with bimetallism.

In the new imperialistic movement, on the other hand, it was the Democrats who were put on the defensive. Any one who leans toward individualism must instinctively lean away from militarism, which makes for strength at the centre; from aggressive movements to annex new lands, whereby the owners are deprived of their natural rights to manage their own affairs, and from any meddling with international politics, for this involves necessarily increased discretionary powers for the central government. It is not that the Democrats care less for the greatness of their fatherland, but they despise that jingo patriotism which abandons the traditions of the country by bringing foreign peoples into subjection. It is left for the centralists to meet the new situation squarely, undertake new responsibilities, and convince the nation that it is strong and mature enough now to play a decisive rôle in the politics of the world. And thus the two great parties are by no manner of means two rudderless derelicts carried hither and thither by the currents ever since the Civil War, but, rather, great three-deckers following without swerve their appointed courses.

The parties have sometimes been distinguished as conservative and liberal, but this is rather a reminiscence of conditions in Europe. Both of the parties are really conservative, as results from both the American character and the nature of the party organization. Even in the most radical Democratic gathering the great appeal is never made in behalf of some advantageous or brilliant innovation but on the grounds of adherence to 50the old, reliable, and well-nigh sacred party principles. If either party is at present departing from the traditions of the past, it is the Republican party, which has always figured as the more conservative of the two. Yet such a distinction is partly true, since the centralists in conformity to their principles must specially maintain the Federal authority and precedent, while the Democratic party is more naturally inclined to give ear to discontented spirits, clever innovators, and fantastic reformers, lest some decentralizing energy should be suppressed. So the Republican party gains a fundamental and cheerful complacence with the prevailing order of things, while the Democratic party, even when it is in power, can never come quite to rest. The contrast is not that between rich and poor; the Democratic party has its quota of millionaires, and the Republican has, for instance, in its negro clientage many of the poorest in the land. But the Republican party is filled with self-satisfaction and the consciousness of power and success, while the Democrats are forever measuring the actual according to an ideal which can never be realized. Like all centralists, the Republicans are essentially opportunists and matter-of-fact politicians; and the Democrats, like all anti-centralists, are idealists and enthusiasts. It has been well said that a Democratic committee is conducted like a debating club, but a Republican like a meeting of the stockholders in a corporation.

These facts clearly hint at a certain personal factor which influences the citizen’s allegiance to one or other of the parties. In meeting a man on a journey one has very soon the impression, though one may often be mistaken, as to what party he belongs to, although he may not have spoken a word about politics. But more distinctive than the personal bias are the groupings by classes and regions which have come about during the course of time. In the North and West the Republicans have the majority among the educated classes, but in the South the educated people are Democrats, particularly since the negro population there holds to the old abolition party, so that the whites are the more ready to be on the other side. The lower classes are moved by the most diverse motives; the farmer is inclined to be Republican and the artisan of the cities Democratic; Protestants are more often Republicans and Catholics Democrats, a partition which began with the early identification of the Puritan clergy of 51New England with the Republican party. This resulted in an affiliation of Catholicism and Democracy which has had very important consequences, particularly in municipal politics; the Irish, who are invariably Catholics, vote with the Democratic party. The Germans and Swedes, specially in the West, are mostly Republicans. In these ways the most complicated combinations have come about, particularly in the Middle West, where many of the larger states are always uncertain at election time. In the elections of the State of New York, the Democrats and Republicans have been alternately successful. Very often the capital city votes differently from the rural districts, as in Massachusetts, which is a stalwart Republican state, although Boston, owing to the Irish population, is Democratic.

These considerations as to the groupings of the party adherents bring us directly to our second question—who are the party politicians? We have aimed to refute the assertion that the parties are without their principles, but there is the further assertion that the politicians are without principles. In asking whether politics are really in the hands of unscrupulous men, one should first ascertain whether there are any honourable motives which would lead a man to devote himself thereto. And it appears that nowhere else are there such powerful inducements for a conscientious man to go into politics. First of all there is the best possible motive, the wish to see one’s country governed according to one’s own ideas of justice and progress, and the desire to work in this way for the honour, security, and welfare of the nation. Any one who has witnessed the American presidential elections once or twice will be convinced that the overwhelming majority of voters casts its votes in a truly ethical spirit, although, of course, the moral feeling is now more, now less, profound. At times when technical matters are chiefly the order of the day, or at best matters of expediency, enthusiasm for a party victory has to be kept up in other ways; but when it comes to questions of the national solidarity and honour, or of justice and freedom, then really high ethical enthusiasm holds place before all other political motives. In fact, the keen party spirit of the American is rather in danger of making him feel a virtuous indignation against 52the opposing party, even in regard to purely technical issues, as if it had fallen into mere frivolity or been criminally irresponsible. And in this way the American is never at a loss for a moral stream of some sort to keep the political mill-wheel turning.

After patriotic enthusiasm come the economic and social motives which even the most high-flown idealist would not designate as corrupt. It is not only just, but it is actually the ideal of politics that every portion of the population, every class and calling, as well as every geographical section, should see its peculiar interests brought up for political debate. It is possible for an equilibrium of all existing forces to be reached only when all elements alike are aware of their chance to assert themselves. Nothing could be gained if agriculture were to become political sponsor for the industrial interests, or if industry were to assume the care and protection of agriculture. A due and proper emphasis by the respective interests of their own needs will always be an honourable and, for the public welfare, useful incentive to political efficiency. It is not to be doubted that in this way American politics have always induced millions of citizens to the liveliest participation. As we have seen, free-trade and protective tariff grew out of the chief demands of the two parties; but this does not prevent the same party opposition from standing in a way for the diverse and partly contradictory interests of Northern industry and Southern plantation life. Hence the parties are immediately interested in trade and commerce. In a similar way the interests of the West have been bound up in bimetallism schemes, while the commercial integrity of the East depends on a gold currency. Legislation affecting trusts and banks and the policy of expansion touch some of the deepest economic problems, and summon all those concerned to come forward and play their part. The same holds true of social interests. The negro, struggling against legislation aimed directly at himself, seeks social protection through the Republican party, while the Irish, Swedes, and Russians also look for political recognition to advance their social interests.

Now these moral, social, and economic motives interest the citizen of every land in politics; but there are other considerations here in play, which, although no less honourable, figure less importantly in Germany for example. First of all stands loyalty to the traditions of one’s party. The son joins the party of his father, and 53is true to it for life. In this way many are held in the party net who otherwise might not agree to its general tenets. In a country where there are many parties with only slight shades of difference, where, say, the national-liberals are only a step removed from the independents or the independent-conservatives, each new election period offers the voter a free choice between parties. But where there are only two camps a party loyalty is developed which leaves very much less to personal inclination, and makes possible a firm party discipline. Then the citizen may come to say of his party as of his fatherland, “It may be right or wrong, it is still my party.” A man like Hoar may use all the force of his rhetoric to condemn imperialism and to stigmatize it as a crime, and he may leave no stone unturned to bring his own Republican party to abandon the imperialistic policy, and yet, if his recommendations are officially outvoiced, he will not falter in supporting the regular candidates of his party, imperialists though they be, as against the anti-imperialist Democratic candidates. The typical American will rather wait for his own party to take up and correct the evils which he most deplores than go over to the other party which may be already working for the same reforms.

To be sure, there are Americans who account this point of view narrow or even culpable, and who reserve the right of judging the programmes of both parties afresh each time and of casting their lot on the side which they find to be right. The example of Carl Schurz will be readily recalled, who in 1896 delivered notable speeches in favour of McKinley against Bryan, but came out in 1900 for Bryan as against McKinley. He was a Republican on the first occasion, because at that time the question of currency was in the foreground, and he thought it paramount to preserve the gold standard, while in the next election he went over to the Democrats because the question of expansion had come to the fore, and he preferred the short-sighted silver policy to the unrighteous programme of war and subjugation. The number of such independent politicians is not small, and among them are many of the finest characters in the land. Behind them comes the considerable class of voters who may be won over to either party by momentary considerations of business prosperity, by any popular agitation for the sake of being with the crowd, by personal sympathies or antipathies, or merely through discontent with the 54prevailing régime. If there were not an appreciable part of the people to oscillate in this way between the parties, the elections would fall out the same way from year to year, the result could always be told beforehand, and neither party would have any incentive to active effort; in short, political life would stagnate. Thus the citizens who owe no party allegiance but take sides according to the merits of the case are very efficient practically: in a way they represent the conscience of the country, and yet three-fourths of the population would look on their political creed with suspicion, or, indeed, contempt. They would insist that the American system needs great parties, and that parties cannot be practically effective if there is no discipline in their organization—that is, if the minority of their membership is not ready to submit cheerfully to the will of the majority. If any man wishes to make reforms, he should first set about to reform his party. Whereas, if on every difference of opinion he goes over to the enemy’s camp, he simply destroys all respect for the weight of a majority, and therewith undermines all democracy. It is as if a party, which found itself defeated at the polls, should start a revolution; whereas it is the pride of the American people to accept without protest the government which the majority has chosen. And so party allegiance is taken as the mark of political maturity, and the men who hold themselves superior to their parties are influential at the polls, but in the party camps they see their arguments held in light esteem. They are mistrusted by the popular mind.

In addition to all this the American happens to be a born politician. On the one hand the mere technique of politics fascinates him; every boy is acquainted with parliamentary forms, and to frame amendments or file demurrers appeals vastly to his fancy. It is an hereditary trait. On the other hand, he finds in the party the most diversified social environment which he may hope to meet. Aside from his church, the farmer or artisan finds his sole social inspiration in his party, where the political assemblies and contact with men of like opinions with himself make him feel vividly that he is a free and equal participant in the mighty game. Moreover, local interests cannot be separated from those of the state, nor these from the affairs of the whole country; for the party lines are drawn even in the smallest community, and dominate public discussions whether great or small, so that even those who 55feel no interest in national questions but are concerned only with local reforms, perhaps the school system or the police board, find themselves, nevertheless, drawn into the machinery of the great national parties.

Yet another motive induces the American to enter politics, a motive which is neither good nor bad. Party politics have for many an aspect of sport, as can be easily understood from the Anglo-Saxon delight in competition and the nearly equal strength of the two parties. All the marks of sport can be seen in the daily calculations and the ridiculous wagers which are made, and in the prevalent desire to be on the side of the winner. Not otherwise can the parades, torch-light processions, and other demonstrations be explained, which are supposed to inspire the indifferent or wavering with the conviction that this party and not the other will come out victorious.

The American, it is seen, has ample inducements to engage in the activities of party, from the noblest patriotic enthusiasm down to the mere excitement over a sport. And it is doubtless these various motives which sustain the parties in their activity and supply such an inexhaustible sum of energy to the nation’s politics. By them the masses are kept busily turning the political wheels and so provided with a political schooling such as they get in no other country.

But we have seen that to enlist in the service of a political party means more than to discuss and vote conscientiously, to work on committees, or to contribute to the party treasury. Every detail of elections, local or national, in every part of the country, has to be planned and worked out by the party organization; and particularly in the matter of nomination of candidates by the members of the party, the work of arranging and agitating one scheme or another has become a veritable science, demanding far more than merely amateur ability. It must not be forgotten that in questions of a majority the American complacent good humour is put aside. The party caucuses are managed on such business-like methods that even in the most stormy debates the minutest points of expediency are kept well in mind. If the several interests are not represented with all that expertness with which an attorney at court would plead the cause of a client, their case is as good as lost. The managers have to study and know the least 56details, be acquainted with personal and local conditions, with the attitude of the press, of the officials, and of the other party leaders. Those members of the organization who conduct the large federal sections and so deal with more than local affairs, have to be at once lawyers, financiers, generals, and diplomats. Shrewd combinations have to be devised in which city, state, and national questions are nicely interwoven and matters of personal tact and abstract right made to play into each other; and these arrangements must be carried out with an energy and discretion that will require the undivided attention of any man who hopes to succeed at the business. Thus the American conditions demand in the way of organization and agitation such an outlay of strength as could not be expected of the citizens of any country, except in times of war, unless in addition to patriotic motives some more concrete inducements should be offered. And thus there are certain advantages and rewards accruing to the men who devote themselves to this indispensable work.

The first of these inducements is, presumably, honour. The personal distinctions which may be gotten in politics cannot easily be estimated after German standards. There are both credits and debits which the German does not suspect. To the former belongs the important fact that all offices up to the very highest can be reached only by the way of party politics. The positions of president, ambassadors, governors, senators, ministers, and so forth are all provided with salaries, but such inadequate ones as compared with the scale of living which is expected of the incumbents that no one would even accept any of these positions for the sake of the remuneration. In most cases an actual financial sacrifice has to be made, since the holding of office is not an assured career, but rather a brief interruption of one’s private business. It is to be remembered, moreover, that a civil office carries no pension. And thus it frequently happens that a man ends his political career because he has spent all of his money, or because he feels it a duty to secure his financial position. Reed, who was in a way the most important Republican leader, gave up his position as speaker of the House of Representatives and broke off all political entanglements in order to become partner in a law firm. In the same way Harrison, on retiring from the presidency, resumed his practice of law, and Day resigned the secretaryship of state 57because his financial resources were not adequate. An ambassador hardly expects his salary to be more than a fraction of his expenditures. Now this circumstance need excite no pity, since there is an abundance of rich men in America, and the Senate has been nicknamed the Millionaire’s Club; but it should serve to show that honour, prestige, and influence are the real incentives to a political career, and not the “almighty dollar,” as certain detractors would have one believe. There are persons, to be sure, who have gotten money in politics, but they are few and insignificant beside those who have been in politics because they had money. The political career in America thus offers greater social rewards than in Germany, where the holding of office is divorced from politics, where the government is an hereditary monarchy and strongly influenced by an hereditary aristocracy, and where even the merest mayor or city councilman must have his appointment confirmed by the government.

Since the social premiums of the political life are so many and so important it may seem astonishing that this career does not attract all the best strength of the nation, and even embarrass the parties with an overplus of great men. The reasons why it does not are as follows: Firstly, distinctions due merely to office or position have not in a democratic country the same exclusive value which they have with an aristocratic nation. The feeling of social equality is much stronger, and all consideration and regard are paid to a man’s personal qualities rather than to his station. A land which knows no nobility, titles, or orders is unschooled in these artificial distinctions, and while there is some social differentiation it is incomparably less. One looks for one’s neighbour to be a gentleman, and is not concerned to find out what he does during office hours. The reputation and influence which are earned in political life are much more potent than any honour deriving from position. But here is found a second retarding factor: the structure of American politics does not conduce to fame. In Germany the party leaders are constantly in the public eye; they deliver important speeches in the Reichstag or the Landtag, and their oratorical achievements are read in every home. In America the debates of Congress are very little read, and those of the state legislatures almost not at all; the work of government is done in committees. The speeches of the 58Senate are the most likely to become known, and yet no one becomes famous in America through his parliamentary utterances, and public sentiment is seldom influenced by oratorical performances at Washington.

In the third place, every American party officer must have served in the ranks and worked his way up. It is not every man’s business to spend his time with the disagreeable minutiæ of the local party organization; and even if he does not dislike the work, he may well object to the society with which he is thrown in these lower political strata. A fourth and perhaps the principal item comes in here. In its lowest departments politics can be made to yield a pecuniary return, and for this reason attracts undesirable and perhaps unscrupulous elements whose mere co-operation is enough to disgust better men and to give the purely political career a lower status in public opinion than might be expected in such a thoroughly political community.

This question of the pecuniary income from political sources is even by the Americans themselves seldom fairly treated. There are three possible sources of income. Firstly, the representatives of the people are directly remunerated; secondly, the politician may obtain a salaried federal, state, or municipal office; and, thirdly, he may misuse his influence or his office unlawfully to enrich himself. It is a regrettable fact that the first source of revenue attracts a goodly number into politics. It is not the case with Congress, but many a man sits in the state legislatures who is there only for the salary, while in reality the monetary allowance was never meant as an inducement but as a compensation, since otherwise many would be deterred altogether from politics. But the stipend is small and attracts no one who has capacity enough to earn more in a regular profession. It attracts, however, all kinds of forlorn and ill-starred individuals, who then scramble into local politics and do their best to bring the calling into disrepute. And yet, after all, these are so small a fraction of the politicians as to be entirely negligible. There would be much worse evils if the salaries were to be abolished. There are others who make money in criminal ways, and of course they have ample opportunity for deception, theft, and corruption in both town and country. Their case is not open to any difference of opinion. It is easy for a member of the school committee to get hold of the land on which 59the next school-house is to be built, and to sell it at a profit; or for a mayor to approve a street-car line which is directly for the advantage of his private associates; or for a captain of police to accept hush money from unlawful gambling houses. Everybody knows that this sort of thing is possible, and that the perpetrators can with difficulty be convicted, yet they occasionally are and then get the punishment which they deserve. But this is no more a part of the political system than the false entries of an absconding cashier are a part of banking. And even if every unproved suspicion of dishonesty were shown to be well founded, the men who so abuse their positions would be as much the exceptions as are those who enter politics for the sake of the salary. We shall return later to these excrescences.

Of the three sources of income from politics, only one remains to be considered—the non-legislative but salaried offices with which the politician may be rewarded for his pains. This is the first and surest means by which the party keeps its great and indispensable army of retainers contentedly at work. And here the familiar evils enter in which are so often held up for discussion in Germany. An American reformer, in criticizing the condition of the parties, is very apt not to distinguish between the giving out of offices to professional politicians as rewards and the later corrupt using of these offices by their incumbents. And as soon as the politician receives an income from the public treasury, the reformer will cry “stop thief.” The so-called “spoils system,” by which the federal offices in the patronage of the President are distributed to those who have worked hardest in the interests of the victorious party, will occupy our attention when we come to the political problems of the day. We shall have then to mention the advantages and disadvantages of civil service reform. But it must be said right here that, however commendable this reform movement may be in many respects, and in none more than in the increased efficiency which it has effected in the public service, nevertheless the spoils system cannot be called dishonourable, and no one should characterize professional politicians as abominable reprobates because they are willing to accept civil positions as rewards from the party for which they have laboured.

It is a usage which has nothing to do with the corrupt exploitation of office, and the German who derives from it the favourite 60prejudice against the political life of the United States must not suppose that he has thereby justified the German conception of office. Quite on the contrary, no one ever expects the German government to bestow offices, titles, or orders on members of the political opposition, to confirm, for instance, an independent for the position of Landrat or a social democrat for city councillor, while co-operation in the plans of the government never goes unrewarded. Above all, a German never looks on his official salary as a sort of present taken from the public treasury, but as the ordinary equivalent of the work which he does, while the American has a curious conception of the matter quite foreign to the German, which is the ground for his contempt of the “spoils system.” To illustrate by a short example: a state attorney who had been elected to the same office time after time, was asked to renew his candidacy at the coming elections. But he declined to do so, and explained that he had been supported for twenty years out of the public funds, and that it was therefore high time for him to earn his own living by the ordinary practice of law. A German cannot understand this conception, traditional though it is in America, but he can easily see that the man who shares such views as to public salaries will naturally consider it an act of plunder when the party in power distributes the best public posts to its own followers.

The case would be somewhat different if the politicians who step into offices were essentially incapable or indolent, though this is aside from the principle in question. Germans have recently become used to seeing a general or a merchant become minister. In America it is a matter of course that a capable man is qualified, with the aid of technically trained subordinates, for any office. And no one denies that politicians make industrious office-holders. And yet the same remarkable charge is always made, that the holder of an office receives a gift from the public chest.

These considerations are not meant as an argument against civil service reform, which is supported by the best men of both parties, although they are not exactly the most zealous party “heelers.” But the superficial assertion must be refuted, that the spoils system shows lack of morality in party politics. No unprejudiced observer would find anything improper in the attitude of those who endure the thankless and arduous labours imposed by the party for the sake of a profitable position in the government service. It 61would be equally just to reproach the German official with lack of character because he rises to a high position in the service of the government. If this were the true idea, Grover Cleveland, who has done more than any other president for the cause of civil service reform, could be said actually to have favored the spoils system. In an admirable essay on the independence of the executive, he says:—

“I have no sympathy with the intolerant people who, without the least appreciation of the meaning of party work and service, superciliously affect to despise all those who apply for office as they would those guilty of a flagrant misdemeanor. It will indeed be a happy day when the ascendancy of party principles and the attainment of wholesome administration will be universally regarded as sufficient rewards of individual and legitimate party service.... In the meantime why should we indiscriminately hate those who seek office? They may not have entirely emancipated themselves from the belief that the offices should pass with party victory, but in all other respects they are in many instances as honest, as capable, and as intelligent as any of us.”

There are such strong arguments for separating public office from the service of party, that every reformer is amply justified if on his native soil he stigmatizes the present usage as corrupt. But the representation that all professional politicians are despicable scamps because they work for their party in the hope of being preferred for public office, is unjust and misleading when it is spread abroad in other countries. Abuses there are, to be sure, and the situation is such as to attract swarms of worthless persons. It is true, moreover, that even in the higher strata of professional politics there is usually less of broad-minded statesmanship than of ingenious compromise and clever exploitation of the opposing party’s weaknesses and of popular whims and prejudices. Petty methods are often more successful than enlightened ones, and cunning men have better chances than those who are more high-minded. In the lower strata, moreover, where it is important to cajole the voting masses into the party fold, it may be inevitable that men undertake and are rewarded for very questionable services. Nevertheless the association of party and office is not intrinsically improper.

In the same category of unjust reproaches, finally, belongs the 62talk over the money paid into the party treasury. It is, of course, true that the elections both great and small eat up vast sums of money; the mountains of election pamphlets, the special trains for candidates who journey from place to place in order to harangue the people at every rural railway station, from the platform of the coach—Roosevelt is said at the last election in this way to have addressed three million persons—the banquet-halls and bands of music, and the thousand other requisites of the contest are not to be had for nothing. It is taken as a matter of course that the supporters of the party are taxed, and of course just those will be apt to contribute who look for further material benefit in case of victory; it is also expected that, of course, the larger industries will help the propaganda of the high-tariff party, that the silver mine owners will generously support bimetallism, and that the beer brewers will furnish funds when it is a question between them and the Prohibitionists. But in the endeavour to hurt the opposing party some persons make such contributions a ground of despicable slander. Any one who considers the matter really without prejudice will see not only that the American party politics are a necessary institution, but also that they are infinitely cleaner and better than the European newspaper reader will ever be inclined to believe.

63

CHAPTER THREE The President

The President of the United States is elected by the people every four years. He may be re-elected and, so far as the Constitution provides, he may hold the first position in the land for life, by terms always of four years at a time. A certain unwritten law, however, forbids his holding office for more than two terms. George Washington was elected for two terms, and after him Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, Grover Cleveland, and William McKinley; that is, nine out of twenty presidents have received this distinction. No president has served a third term of office, because since Washington declined to be nominated for a third time the conservative sense of the Americans has cherished the doctrine that no man should stand at the helm of the nation longer than eight years.

At the present day it is urged from many sides that the provisions of the Constitution ought to be changed. It is said that the frequently recurring presidential elections, with the popular excitement which they involve during the months immediately preceding, are an appreciable disturbance to economic life and that the possibility of being re-elected is too apt to make the President in the first term of office govern his actions with an eye to his second election. It is proposed, therefore, that every President shall be elected for six years and that re-election shall be forbidden by the Constitution. Experience of the past, however, hardly speaks for such a plan. The inclination shown by the President to yield to popular clamours or the instances of his party has been very different with different presidents, but on the whole it has not been noticeably greater in the first than in the second term of office. More especially, the disadvantages which 64come from the excitement over elections are certainly made up for by the moral advantage which the act of election brings to the people. The presidential election is a period of considerable reflection and examination of the country’s condition, and everybody is worked up to considerable interest; and the more changeable the times are so much the more rapidly new problems come up. Therefore there should be no thought of putting the decisive public elections, with their month-long discussions, at further intervals apart.

The most important duties and prerogatives of the President involve foreign as well as domestic affairs, and of the latter the most important concern the administration; a less important, although by no means an insignificant, part of his duties relates to legislation. The President is commander-in-chief of the army and of the navy, and with the approval of a majority of the Senate he appoints ambassadors, consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all the higher federal officials. Subject to the ratification of two-thirds of the Senate, he concludes treaties with foreign powers and regulates diplomatic relations. He has, moreover, the right to send back inside of ten days, with his veto, any bill which Congress has passed, and in this case the bill can become law only by being once more voted on by Congress and receiving in both houses a two-third’s majority. The President has the power to convene both houses in special sessions, and is expected to send messages to both houses when they meet, in which he describes the political situation of the country and recommends new measures. In addition to this he has the right of pardon and the right to afford protection to individual states against civil violence, if they cannot themselves quell the disturbance.

Such are the principal features of the presidential office, and it is clear that here as everywhere in American civil law the spirit of precaution has tried from the outset to limit the possibilities of abuse. Although he is commander-in-chief of the army, the President has not the right to declare war, this right being given to Congress. The President negotiates with foreign representatives and signs all treaties, but these are not valid until the Senate has approved them with a two-thirds vote. He nominates government officials, but once again only with the sanction of the Senate. The President convenes Congress and recommends matters 65for its legislative consideration, but the President cannot, like the German Government, lay bills before Congress for its ratification. While the President sends his message to Congress his ministers have not, as in Germany, a seat in parliament, and cannot, therefore, in the debates actively support the President’s policy.

The President is authorized to veto any bill that is passed through Congress, but his veto is not final since the bill can still become a law if Congress is sufficiently of one accord to override his veto. Therefore a whimsical or arbitrary president would find small scope for his vagaries so long as he keeps within his powers, while if he exceeds them he can be impeached, like a king under old English law. The House of Representatives can at any time file complaint against the President if he is suspected of treason or corruption or any other crime. In such case the Senate, under the chairmanship of a judge of the Supreme bench, constitutes a court of trial which is empowered to depose the President from office. Up to the present time but one president, Andrew Johnson, has been impeached, and he was acquitted. The seditionary ambition of a man who should try to gain complete control, to overthrow the Constitution, and at the head of the army, or of the populace, or, as might be more likely, of the millionaires, to institute a monarchy, would have no chance of success. Neither a Napoleon nor a Boulanger would be possible in America.

In spite of these provisions, it is to be observed that tremendous power is in the hands of this one man. Thousands and thousands of officials appointed by his predecessor can be removed by a stroke of his pen, and none can take their places except those whom he nominates. And he can put a barrier before any law such as Congress could only in exceptional cases ride over. Cleveland, for instance, who to be sure made the freest use of his authority in this respect, vetoed more than three hundred bills, and only twice did Congress succeed in setting aside his veto. The President may negotiate with foreign powers up to the point where a loyal and patriotic Congress has hardly any choice but to acquiesce. The President can virtually force Congress to a declaration of war, and if insurrection breaks out in any state he can at his pleasure employ the federal troops on behalf of one or the other faction, and when war has once been declared the 66presidential authority grows hourly in importance. The army and navy stand under his direction, and since the Constitution makes him responsible for the maintenance of law and order in the country he becomes virtually dictator in case of an insurrection. Bryce says very justly that Abraham Lincoln exercised more power than any man in England since Oliver Cromwell, and the anti-imperialistic papers of America always assert that in their Philippine policy McKinley and Roosevelt have taken on themselves more authority than any European monarch, excepting the Czar, could acquire.

In two respects the President is more important as compared with the representatives of the people, even in times of peace, than the king of England or the President of France. Firstly, his cabinet is entirely independent of the voice of parliament, and it has often been the case that while a majority in Congress sharply opposed the party policy of the President, this has not influenced the composition of his cabinet. The cabinet ministers are the representatives of the presidential policy, and they do not even take part in the doings of Congress.

Secondly, the President is not less but rather more than Congress a representative of the people. A monarch who takes up a position against the parliament thereby antagonizes the people. The President of France is elected by the people, but only through their parliamentary representatives; the chambers elect him, and therefore he is not an independent authority. The President of the United States, on the other hand, is in his own person a symbol of the collective will of the people, as opposed to the different members of Congress, which is of diverse composition and chosen on more local issues. There is moral authority, therefore, vested in the President. He is the true will of the people and his veto is their conscience. It is almost astonishing that a Republican democracy should have put such tremendous power into the hands of a single man. It is the more striking inasmuch as the Declaration of Independence related at length the sins of the English monarch. But we must bear in mind that the framers of the Constitution had to make a new and dangerous experiment, wherein they were much more afraid of that so far unknown and incalculable factor, the rule of the people, than the power of that single person whose administrative possibilities they had, in the colonial 67days, been able to observe in the governors of the several states. These had been diminutive but, on the whole, encouraging examples. Before all else the great and incomparable George Washington, the popular, dashing, and yet cautious aristocrat, had presided at the deliberations in which the Constitution was discussed, and had himself stood tangibly before the popular mind as the very ideal of a president.

Thus the President stands with tremendous powers at the helm of the nation. Who has sought him out for this position from the hundreds of thousands, whose hot ambition has led them to dream of such a distinction, and who has finally established him in this highest elective office on the face of the earth? The Constitution makes no other provision for the selection of a candidate than that he shall have been born in the land, that he shall be at least thirty-five years old, and shall have resided at least fourteen years in this his native country. On the other hand, the Constitutional provisions for his election are highly complicated, much more so indeed than the circumstances really call for. In fact, while the electoral procedures still comply with the wording of the original Constitution, actual conditions have so changed since the establishment of the Union that the prescribed machinery is not only partly unnecessary, but in some cases even works in opposition to what had been originally intended, and inconsistently with itself. The law requires, merely to mention the main point, that every state shall elect by popular vote a certain number of men who are called electors, and that a majority of the electors shall choose the President. For each state the number of electors is the same as that of the representatives which it sends to both houses of Congress together; it depends, therefore, on the number of inhabitants. Out of the 447 electors, 36 come from the State of New York, 32 from Pennsylvania, 24 from Illinois, 23 from Ohio, 15 from Massachusetts, but only 4 from Colorado, Florida, or New Hampshire; and only 3 from Delaware, Idaho, North Dakota, Utah, and several others. In case the vote of the electors should give no absolute majority to any candidate, the House of Representatives has to elect the President from among the three candidates who have received the greatest number of electoral votes.

The intention of the men who framed the Constitution in making these roundabout electoral provisions is clear enough; the 68election was not meant to be made directly by the people. When in the first discussions of the Constitution it was suggested that the President be elected directly by the people, some of the framers called the scheme chimerical and others called it impracticable. Indeed, some even doubted whether the people would be competent to choose the electors since, it was said, they would know too little about the persons and so would be liable to grave errors. This mistrust went so far, it is said, that leaving the election of the highest executives directly to the people seemed as unnatural as asking a blind man to match colors. The first plan which was at all approved by the Assembly was that Congress should elect the President; and not until later did it adopt the system of electors. It was hoped that for the electoral college the people would select the best, most experienced, and most cautious men of the country, and that these men should be left quite free to choose the highest executive as carefully and conscientiously as possible: and so it really happened when the electors met for the first time and fixed unanimously on George Washington.

But the situation is somewhat changed to-day: for a hundred years it has been the case that the electors have inevitably been deprived of all free choice. They are as passive as a printed ballot. They are no longer elected in order to come to a decision as to the best President, but merely to vote for this or that special candidate as designated, and for a hundred years not a single elector has disappointed this expectation. Thus the election of the President is practically accomplished on the day in November when the electors are voted for. McKinley defeated Bryan for the Presidency on the ninth of November, 1900, although no elector had officially voted for either one or the other; nor would he have a chance to vote until the first day of January, when he was mechanically to deposit his ballot.

The indirect election prescribed by the Constitution has therefore become to all intents and purposes a direct one, and the whole machinery of electors is really superfluous. It may, indeed, be said to have become contradictory in itself.

Since the original intention to make an electoral college of the best citizens has been frustrated by the popular spirit of self-determination, the electoral apparatus can have to-day no other significance than to give expression to the voice of the majority. 69But now just this it is in the power of the electoral system completely to suppress. Let us suppose that only two candidates are in question. If the election were simply a direct one, of course that candidate would win who received the most votes; but with electors this is not the case, because the number of electors who are pledged to vote for these two candidates need not at all correspond to the number of ballots cast on the two sides. If in the State of New York, for instance, three-fifths of the population are for the first candidate and two-fifths for the second, the three-fifths majority determines the whole list of 36 electors for the first candidate, and not an elector would be chosen for the other. Now it can very well happen that a candidate in those states in which he secures all the electors will have small majorities, that is, his opponent will have large minorities, while his opponent in the states which vote for him will have large majorities; and in this way the majority of electors will be pledged for that candidate who has received actually the smaller number of votes. It is a fact that both Hayes in 1877 and Harrison in 1889 were constitutionally elected for the Presidency by a minority of votes.

While in form the voters choose only the electors from their state, nevertheless these ballots thus actually count for a certain candidate. At the last election 292 electors voted for McKinley, and 155 for Bryan, while for the McKinley electors 832,280 more votes were cast than for the Bryan electors. We have already seen how it is that the best man will no longer, as in Washington’s time, be unequivocally elected by the people, and why, although a unanimous choice of President has not taken place since Washington’s time, nevertheless no more than two candidates are ever practically in question. It was for this that we have discussed the parties first. The parties are the factor which makes it impossible for a President to be elected without a contest, and which, as early as 1797, when the successor of Washington had to be nominated, divided the people in two sections, the supporters of Jefferson and of Adams. At the same time, however, the parties prevent the division from going further, and bring it about that this population of millions of people compactly organizes itself for Presidential elections in only two groups, so that although never less than two, still never more than two candidates really step into the arena.

70For both great parties alike, with their central and local committees, with their professional politicians, with their leaders and their followers, whether engaging in politics out of interest or in hope of gain, as an ideal or as sport—for all alike comes the great day when the President is to be elected. For years previous the party leaders will have combined and dissolved and speculated and intrigued, and for years the friends of the possible candidates have spoken loudly in the newspapers, since here, of course, not only the election but also the nomination of the candidate depends on the people. Although the election is in November, the national conventions for nominating the party candidates come generally in July. Each state sends its delegation, numbering twice as many as the members of Congress from that state, and each delegation is once more duly elected by a convention of representatives chosen by the actual voters out of their party lists. In these national conventions the great battles of the country are fought, that is, within the party, and here the general trend of national politics is determined. It is the great trial moment for the party and the party heroes. At the last election McKinley and Bryan were the opposing candidates, and it is interesting to trace in their elections by the respective conventions two great types of party decision.

McKinley had grown slowly in public favour; he was the accomplished politician, the interesting leader of Congress, the sympathetic man who had no enemies. When the Republican convention met at Chicago, in 1888, he was a member of the delegation from Ohio and was pledged to do his utmost for the nomination of John Sherman. The ballots were cast five different times and every time no one candidate was found to have a majority. On the sixth trial one vote was cast for McKinley, and the announcement of this vote created an uproar. A sudden shifting of the opinions took place amid great acclamation, and the delegations all went over to him. He jumped up on a stool and called loudly through the hall that he should be offended by any man who voted for him since he himself had been pledged to vote for Sherman. Finally a compromise was found in Benjamin Harrison. At the convention in Minneapolis four years later McKinley was chairman, and once more the temptation came to him. The opponents of Harrison wished to oppose his re-election by uniting on the Ohio 71statesman, and again it was McKinley himself who turned the vote this time in favour of Harrison. His own time came finally in 1896. In the national convention at St. Louis 661 votes were cast in the first ballot for McKinley, while 84 were cast for Thomas Reed, 61 for Quay, 58 for Morton, and 35 for Allison. And when, in 1900, the national convention met in Philadelphia, 926 votes were straightway cast for McKinley, and none opposing. His was the steady, sure, and deserved rise from step to step through tireless exertions for his party and his country.

Bryan was a young and unknown lawyer, who had sat for a couple of years in the House of Representatives like any other delegate, and had warmly upheld bimetallism. At the Democratic national convention at Chicago in 1896 almost nobody knew him. But it was a curious crisis in the Democratic party. It had been victorious four years previous in its campaign for Cleveland against Harrison, but the party as such had enjoyed no particular satisfaction. The self-willed and determined Cleveland, who had systematically opposed Congress tooth and nail, had fallen out with his party and nowhere on the horizon had appeared a new leader. And after a true statesman like Cleveland had come to grief, the petty politicians, who had neither ideas nor a programme, came to their own. Every one was looking for a strong personality when Bryan stepped forth to ingratiate himself and his silver programme in the affections of his party. His arguments were not new, but his catch-words were well studied, and here at last stood a fascinating personality with a forceful temperament which was all aglow, and with a voice that sounded like the tones of an organ. And when he cried out, “You must not nail humanity to a cross of gold,” it was as if an omen had appeared. He became at once the Democratic candidate for the Presidency, and six months later six and one-half million votes were cast for him against the seven million for McKinley. Nor did the silver intoxication succumb to its first defeat. When the Democrats met again in 1900, all the endeavours of those who had adhered to a gold currency were seen to be futile. Once again the silver-tongued Nebraskan was carried about in triumph, and not until its second defeat did the Democratic party wake up. Bryanism is now a dead issue, and before the next Presidential 72election the programme of the Democratic party will be entirely reconstructed.

Thus the presidents of the nation grow organically out of the party structure, and the parties find in turn their highest duty and their reward in electing their President. The people organized in a party and the chief executive which that party elects belong necessarily together. They are the base and the summit. Nothing but death can overthrow the decision of the people; death did overthrow, indeed, the last decision after a few months, in September, 1901, when the cowardly assassination accomplished by a Polish anarchist brought the administration of McKinley to an end. As the Constitution provides, the man whom the people had elected to the relatively insignificant office of Vice-President became master in the White House.

The Vice-Presidency is from the point of view of political logic the least satisfactory place in American politics. Very early in the history of the United States the filling of this office occasioned many difficulties, and at that time the provisions of the Constitution referring to it were completely worked over. The Constitution had originally said that the man who had the second largest number of votes for the Presidency should become Vice-President. This was conceived in the spirit of the time when the two-party system did not exist and when it was expected that the electors should not be restricted by the voting public in their choice of the best man. As soon, however, as the opposition between the two parties came into being, the necessary result of such provision was that the presidential candidate of the defeated party should become Vice-President, and therefore that President and Vice-President should always represent diametrically opposed tendencies. A change in the Constitution did away with this political impossibility. Each elector was instructed to deposit separate ballots for President and Vice-President, and that candidate became Vice-President who received the largest number of votes for that office, both offices being thus invariably filled by candidates of the same party.

In spite of this the position has developed rather unsatisfactorily for an obvious reason. The Constitution condemns the Vice-President, so long as the President holds office, to an ornamental inactivity. It is his duty to preside at sessions of the Senate, a 73task which he for the most part performs silently, and which has not nearly the political significance enjoyed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives. On the other hand, men still in the prime of life are almost always elected to the Presidency; the possibility is therefore almost always lost sight of that the President can die before the expiration of his four years’ term of office. The result has been that less distinguished men, who have, nevertheless, served their parties, are usually chosen for this insignificant and passive rôle. The office is designed to be an honour and a consolation to them, and sometimes for one reason or another their candidacy is supposed otherwise to strengthen the outlook of the party. It is not accident that while in the several states the Lieutenant-Governor is very often the next man to be elected Governor, it has never so far happened that a Vice-President has been elected to the Presidency.

Now in the unexpected event of the President’s death a man stands at the helm whom no one really wants to see there; and it has five times happened that the chief executive of the nation has died in office, and four times, indeed, only a few months after being installed, so that the Vice-President has had to guide the destinies of the country for almost four years. When Tyler succeeded to the place of Harrison in 1841, there arose at once unfavourable disputes with the Whig party, which had elected him. When, after the murder of Lincoln in 1865, Johnson took the reins, it was his own Republican party which regretted having elected this impetuous man to the Vice-Presidency; and when, in 1881, after the assassination of Garfield, his successor, Arthur, undertook the office, and filled it indeed by no means badly, considerable consternation was felt throughout the country when people saw that so ordinary a professional politician was to succeed Garfield, on whom the country had pinned its faith.

On the death of McKinley a Vice-President succeeded him toward whom, in one respect at least, the feeling was very different. If ever a man was born to become President that man was Theodore Roosevelt. Nevertheless, he had not been elected in expectation of becoming President, and at first the whole country felt once more that it was a case which had lain outside of all reasonable calculations. Roosevelt’s friends had asked him to make a sacrifice and to accept a thankless office because they 74knew that his name on the ballot of the Republican party—for his Rough Rider reputation during the war was still fresh—would be pretty sure to bring about the election of McKinley. The opponents also of this strong and energetic young man, against his stoutest protestations, upheld his candidacy with every means in their power. Firstly because they wanted to get rid of him as Governor of the State of New York, where he made life too hard for the regular politicians, and secondly because they relied on the tradition that holding the Vice-Presidency would invalidate him as a Presidential candidate in 1904. Neither friends nor enemies had thought of such a possibility as McKinley’s death. Roosevelt’s friends had rightly judged; the hero of San Juan did bring victory to his party. His enemies, on the other hand, had entirely missed their mark not only on the outcome, but from the very beginning. Odell became Governor of New York, and quite unexpectedly he stood out even more stoutly against the political corruptionists. And, on the other hand, Roosevelt’s impulsive nature quickly found ways to break the traditional silence of the Vice-President and to keep himself before the eyes of the world. There is no doubt that in spite of all traditions his incumbency would have been a preparation for the presidential candidacy. But when, through the crime committed at Buffalo, everything came out so differently from that which the politicians expected, it seemed to the admirers of Roosevelt almost like the tragic hand of fate; he had done his best to attain on his own account the Presidency, and now it came to him almost as the gift of chance. Only the next election may be expected to do him full justice.

The successive moments in his rapid rise are generally known. Roosevelt was born in New York in 1858, his father being a prosperous merchant and well-known philanthropist, and a descendant of an old Knickerbocker family. The son was prepared for college and went to Harvard, where he made a special study of history and political economy. After that he travelled in Europe, and when he was still only twenty-four years old, he plunged into politics. He soon obtained a Republican seat in the state legislature of New York, and there commenced his tireless fight for reform in municipal and state administration. In 1889 President Harrison appointed him Commissioner of the Civil Service, but he resigned this position in 1895 in order to become Chief of Police 75in New York. Only two years later he was once more called from municipal to national duties. He was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy. All this time his administrative duties did not interrupt his literary, historical, and scientific work. He had begun his career as an author with his studies in the history of the navy and his admirable biographies of American statesmen. When he was thirty years old he wrote the first part of his great work, “The Winning of the West,” and often between the publication of his scientific works he published lesser books, describing his adventures as huntsman in the primeval wilderness, and later on volumes in which his social and political essays were collected.

Then the Spanish War arose and the Assistant Secretary could not bear to sit at his desk while others were moving to the field of battle. He gathered about him a volunteer regiment of cavalry, in which the dare-devil cow-punchers of the prairie rode side by side with the adventurous scions of the most distinguished families in Boston and New York. Roosevelt’s friend, Wood, of the regular army, became Colonel in this soon-famous regiment, and Roosevelt himself Lieutenant-Colonel. A few days after they had successfully stormed the hill at San Juan, Wood became General and Roosevelt Colonel.

His native State of New York received him on his home-coming with general rejoicing, and he found himself a few months later Governor of the State. At Albany he showed tremendous energy, put through popular reforms, and fought against the encroachments of the industrial corporations. It had been his personal wish to be Governor for a second year, but this was denied him by the admirable doings of his Eastern enemies and Western admirers at the national convention of June, 1900, held in Pennsylvania, where he was forced to become candidate for the position of Vice-President. On the 14th of September, 1901, in Buffalo, he took the Presidential oath of office.

At that time a quiet anxiety for the future was mingled with the honest sorrow which the whole land felt for the death of McKinley. A nation which had been sunning itself in peace suddenly found itself under the leadership of an impulsive colonel of cavalry, who carried in his hand the banner of war. The nation was in the midst of an economic development which needed before everything else to have a mature and careful leader who was honoured 76and trusted by all classes, and who would be able to effect some work of reconciliation between them; when suddenly there stood in the place of a most conservative statesman an impetuous young man who was not intimately connected with industrial life, who had for a long time made himself unpopular with party politicians, and whom even his admirers in the land seemed hardly to trust on account of his hasty and determined impetuosity. Roosevelt had been envisaged by the masses, through the cinematograph of the press, in campaign hat and khaki uniform, just in the attitude of taking San Juan hill. Nearly everybody forgot that he had for a long time quietly carried on the exacting labours of Police Commissioner in the largest city of the country; and forgot how, from his first year of study at Harvard on, every day had been given to preparing himself for public service and for acquiring a thorough understanding of all the political, social, and economic problems which the country had to face; they forgot also that he had wielded the sword for only a few months, but the pen of the historian for about two decades. Roosevelt’s first public utterance was a pledge to continue unchanged the peaceful policy of his predecessor and always to consider the national prosperity and honour. Still, people felt that no successor would be able to command that experience, maturity, and party influence which McKinley had had.

There have been differences of opinion, and, as was to be expected, complaints and criticisms have come from the midst of his own party. Yet anyone who looks at his whole administration will see that in those first years Roosevelt won a more difficult and brilliant victory than he had won over the Spanish troops.

He had three virtues which especially overcame all small criticism. The people felt, in the first place, that a moral force was here at work which was more powerful than any mere political address or diplomatic subtlety. An immediate ethical force was here felt which owned to ideas above any party, and set inner ideals above merely outward success. Roosevelt’s second virtue was courage. A certain purely ethical ideal exalted above all petty expediencies was for him not only the nucleus of his own creed, but was also his spring of action; and he took no account of personal dangers. Here was the keynote of all his speeches—it is not enough to approve of what is right, it is equally necessary 77to act for it fearlessly and unequivocally. Then he went on to his work, and if, indeed, in complicated political situations the President has had at times to clinch some points by aid of compromise, nevertheless the nation has felt with growing confidence that at no serious moment has he wavered a hair’s breadth from the straight line of his convictions, and that he has had the courage to disregard everything but what he held to be right. And, thirdly, Roosevelt had the virtue of being sincere.

McKinley also had purposed to do right, but he had hardly an occasion for displaying great courage since so incomparably discreet a politician as he was could avoid every conflict with his associates, and he was ever the leader on highways which the popular humour had indicated. Thus the masses never felt that he was at bottom lacking in courage or that he always put off responsibility on others. The masses did, however, instinctively feel that McKinley’s astute and kindly words were not always sincere; his words were often there to conceal something which was locked up behind his Napoleonic forehead. And now there succeeded him an enthusiast who brimmed over with plain expressions of what he felt, and whose words were so convincingly candid and so without reservation that every one had the feeling of being in the personal confidence of the President.

There was a good deal more besides his moral earnestness, his courage, and his frank honesty which contributed to Roosevelt’s entire success. His lack of prejudice won the lower classes, and his aristocratic breeding and education won the upper, while the middle classes were enthusiastic over his sportsmanship. No President had been more unprejudiced or more truly democratic. He met the poor miner on the same footing as he met the mine owner; he invited the negro to the White House; he sat down and broke bread with the cow-boys; and when he travelled he first shook the sooty hand of the locomotive engineer before he greeted the gentlemen who had gathered about in their silk hats. And, nevertheless, he was in many years the first real aristocrat to become President. The changes in the White House itself were typical. This venerable Presidential dwelling had been, up to Roosevelt’s time, in its inner arrangements a dreary combination of bare offices, somewhat crudely decorated private dwelling, and cheerless reception-halls. To-day it is a very proper palace, containing many 78fine works of art, and office-seekers no longer have access to the inner rooms. His predecessors, the Clevelands and Harrisons and McKinleys, had been, in fact, very respectable philistines. They had come from the middle classes of the country, which are in thought and feeling very different from that upper class which, up to a short time ago, had bothered itself less about practical politics than about general culture, literature, art, criticism, and broadly conceived industrial operations, combined with social high-life. This class, however, had begun at length to feel that it ought not to disdain to notice political abuses, to walk around the sea of troubles; but had begun to take up arms and by opposing end them. Aristocracy had too long believed in political mercenaries.

Roosevelt was the first to lift himself from these circles and become a great leader. Not alone the nobility of his character but also of his culture and traditions was shown in his entire habit of mind. Never in his speeches or writings has he cited that socially equalizing Declaration of Independence, and while his speeches at banquets and small gatherings of scholarly men have been incomparably more fascinating than his strenuous utterances to the voters, which he has made on his public tours, it has been often less the originality of his thoughts and still less the peculiarly taking quality of his delivery, than the evidences of ripe culture, which seem to pervade his political thought. Thus the smaller the circle to which he speaks the greater is his advantage; and in speaking with him personally on serious problems one feels that distinction of thought, breadth of historical outlook, and confidence in self have united in him to create a personality after the grand manner.

The impression which Roosevelt has made on his own country has not been more profound than his influence on the galaxy of nations. At the very hour when the United States by their economic and territorial expansion stepped into the circle of world powers, they had at their head a personality who, for the first time in decades, had been able to make a great, characteristic, and, most of all, a dramatic impression on the peoples of Europe. And if this hour was to be made the most of it was not enough that this leader should by his impulsiveness and self-will, by his picturesque gestures and effective utterance, chain the attention of the masses 79and excite all newspaper readers, but he must also win the sympathies of the keener and finer minds, and excite some sympathetic response in the heads of monarchies. A second Lincoln would never have been able to do this, and just this was what the moment demanded. The nation’s world-wide position in politics needed some comparable expansion in the social sphere. Other peoples were to welcome their new comrades not only in the official bureau but also in the reception-room, and this young President had always at his command a graceful word, a tactful expedient, and a distinguished and hospitable address. He was, in short, quite the right man.

Any new person taking hold so firmly has to disturb a good many things; busied with so much, he must overturn a good deal which would prefer to be left as it was. The honest man has his goodly share of enemies. And it is not to be denied that Roosevelt has the failings of his virtues, and these have borne their consequences. Many national dangers, which are always to be feared from officials of Roosevelt’s type, are largely obviated by the democratic customs of the country. He lives amid a people not afraid to tell him the whole truth, and every criticism reaches his ear. And there is another thing not less important: democracy forces every man into that line of activity for which the nation has elected him. A somewhat overactive mind like Roosevelt’s has opinions on many problems, and his exceptional political position easily betrays one at first into laying exceptional weight on one’s own opinions about every subject. But here the traditions of the country have been decisive; it knows no President for general enlightenment, but only a political leader whose private opinions outside politics are of no special importance. In this as in other respects Roosevelt has profited by experience. There is no doubt that when he came to the White House he underestimated the power of Senators and party leaders. The invisible obstructions, which were somehow hidden behind the scenes, have no doubt given him many painful lessons. In his endeavour to realize so many heartfelt convictions, he has often met with arbitrary opposition made simply to let the new leader feel that obstructions can be put in his way unless he takes account of all sorts of factors. But these warnings have really done him no harm, for Roosevelt was not the man to be brought by them into that party subserviency which had 80satisfied McKinley. They merely held him back from that reckless independence which is so foreign to the American party spirit, and which in the later years of Cleveland’s administration had worked so badly. Indeed, one might say that the outcome has been an ideal synthesis of Cleveland’s consistency and McKinley’s power of adaptation.

For the fanatics of party Roosevelt has been, of course, too independent, while to the opponents of party he has seemed too yielding. Both of these criticisms have been made, in many different connections, since everywhere he has stood on a watch tower above the fighting lines of any party. When in the struggles between capital and labour he seriously took into account the just grievances of the working-man he was denounced as a socialist. And when he did not at once stretch out his hand to demolish all corporations he was called a servant of the stock exchange. When he appointed officials in the South without reference to their party allegiance, the Republicans bellowed loudly; and when he did not sanction the Southern outrages against the negro the Democrats became furious. When everything is considered, however, he has observed the maxim of President Hayes, “He best serves his party who serves his country best.”

In this there has been another factor at work. Roosevelt may not have had McKinley’s broad experience in legislative matters, nor have known the reefs and bars in the Congressional sea, but for the executive office, for the administration of civil service and the army and navy, for the solution of federal, civil, and municipal problems his years of study and travel have been an ideal preparation. Behind his practical training he has had the clear eye of the historian. The United States had their proverbial good luck when the Mephistos of the Republican party prevailed on the formidable Governor of New York to undertake the thankless office of Vice-President. If this nomination had gone as the better politicians wished it to go, the death of McKinley would have placed a typical politician at the helm instead of the best President which the country has had for many years.

The President is closely associated with the Cabinet, and he is entirely free in his choice of advisers. There is no question here 81of the influence of majorities on the composition of the ministry, as there is in England or France. In this way Cleveland, in his second term, had already announced by his choice of cabinet ministers that he should go his own ways regardless of the wire-pullers of the party. He gave the Secretaryship of War to his former private secretary; the position of Postmaster-General to his former partner in law; the Secretaryship of Justice to a jurist who had never taken any interest in politics. His Secretary of the Interior was a personal friend, and the Secretary of Foreign Affairs a man who shortly before had left the ranks of the Republican party to become a Cleveland Democrat. The Secretaryships of Commerce and the Treasury were the sole cabinet positions which were given to well-known party leaders. The very opposite was to have been expected from a man of McKinley’s disposition. Even when he became the chief executive of the country he remained the devoted servant of his party, and just as his success was owing in large part to his sympathetic relations with all the important factions in Congress, so the success of his Cabinet was due to his having chosen none but men who had enjoyed for a long time the confidence of the party.

Roosevelt did at the outset an act of political piety when he left the Cabinet, for the time being, unchanged. It was at the same time a capital move toward reassuring public opinion, which had stood in fear of all sorts of surprises, owing to his impetuous temperament. Slowly, however, characteristic readjustments were made and a new cabinet office was created under his administration, the Secretaryship of Commerce and Labour. This was entrusted to Cortelyou, who had been the private secretary of two presidents, and who, through his tact, discretion, and industry, had contributed not a little to their practical success.

The highest minister in order of rank is the Secretary of State, who is the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and who, in the case that both the President and Vice-President are unable to complete their term of office, assumes the Presidency. He is responsible for the diplomatic and consular representation of the United States and he alone negotiates with representatives of foreign powers at Washington; moreover, it is through him that the President treats with the separate states of the Union. He publishes the laws passed by Congress and adds his signature to 82all of the President’s official papers. He is, next to the President, so thoroughly the presiding spirit of the administration that it is hardly a mistake to compare him to the Chancellor of the German Empire. It happens at the moment that the present incumbent makes this comparison still more apt, since John Hay, the present Secretary of Foreign Affairs, resembles Count von Bülow in several ways. Both have been in former years closely affiliated to the national heroes of the century, both have gotten their training in various diplomatic positions, both are resourceful, accommodating, and brilliant statesmen, and both have a thoroughly modern temperament, intellectual independence bred of a broad view of the world, both are apt of speech and have fine literary feeling. Hay was the secretary of President Lincoln until Lincoln’s death, and has been secretary of the embassies in France, Austria, and Spain, has taken distinguished place in party politics, has been Assistant Secretary of State, Ambassador to England, and in 1898 was placed at the head of foreign affairs. His “Ballads,” “Castilian Days,” and “Life of Lincoln,” call to mind his literary reputation.

How far foreign affairs are really conducted by the President and how far by the Secretary of State is, of course, hard to say, but, at any rate, the representatives of foreign powers treat officially only with the Secretary, who has his regular days for diplomatic consultation, so that the relations of foreign representatives to the President, after their first official introduction, remain virtually social. Yet all important measures are undertaken only with the approval of the President, and on critical questions of international politics the whole cabinet deliberates together. Hay’s personal influence came clearly before the public eye especially in his negotiations regarding the Central American canal, and in his handling of the Russian and Asiatic problems. Particularly after the Chinese imbroglio he came to be generally reputed the most astute and successful statesman of the day. It will probably not be far wrong to ascribe such tendencies in American politics as are friendly toward England chiefly to his influence. On the other hand, he is supposed to feel no special leanings toward Germany.

The Secretary of the Treasury is next in rank. He administers the Federal finances to all intents and purposes like a large banker, or, rather, like a bank president who should have Congress for his 83board of directors. Since customs and international revenues are levied by the Federal Government, and not by the several states, and since the expenditures for the army and navy, for the postal service, and for the Federal Government itself, the national debt and the mints come under Federal administration, financing operations are involved which are so extensive as to have a deciding influence on the banking system of the entire country.

The third official in rank is the Secretary of War, while the Secretary of the Navy holds only the sixth place, with the Attorney-General and the Postmaster-General in between. The General Staff of the Secretary of War, which was organized in 1903, is composed of officers of high rank, although the Secretary himself is a civilian. In the case of the army, as well as of the navy, the functions of the secretary are decidedly more important than those, say, of a Prussian Minister. They concern not only administration, but also, in case of war, are of decisive weight on the movements of all the forces, since the President as commander-in-chief has to act through these ministers. Elihu Root was for almost five years Secretary of War; and on his retirement in January, 1904, Roosevelt declared: “Root is the greatest man who has appeared in our times in the public life of any country, either in the New World or the Old.”

The position of Attorney-General is less comparable with a corresponding office in the German state. This minister of the President has no influence on the appointment of judges or the administration of the courts. The official representative of justice in the Cabinet is really an exalted lawyer, who is at the same time the President’s legal adviser. So far as appointments to office go, the Secretary of the Post Office Department has practically no influence regarding those who are under him, since the tremendous number of postal officials of any considerable importance have to be confirmed in their appointments by the Senate, so that the appointing power has virtually gone over to that body. On the other hand, the whole postal service is under his direction; but it is here not to be forgotten that the American railroads and, what the German may think more extraordinary, the telegraph lines, are not government property.